


Not Snow White

by shichan_DFKink (shinchansgirl)



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Complete, Gen, Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-29
Updated: 2011-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:10:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinchansgirl/pseuds/shichan_DFKink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Mab sends her Knight to kill the Baron Marcone in secret. Harry is forced to try to kill Marcone but after following him finds that he cannot do it. John must save him from Mab's punishment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Snow White

I felt like we were acting out Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, minus the seven little men. It didn’t help that Mab really was the Queen (the fairest Winter Queen of Winter, though not really the _fair_ est, just the prettiest), and while John Marcone was no Snow White doomed to eat a poisoned apple and waken at True Love’s First Kiss, he was encroaching on the Winter Queen’s territory enough to tick her off.

I was currently in the role of the hunter, seeing as how I was her Knight and the Erlking hadn’t seen fit to lend her any of his hunters for centuries.

Being the hunter, it was my job to kill Snow White – er, John Marcone. Mab had made it very clear that it was my job, and she didn’t care how it was done but she’d had enough of the freeholding lord. He knew too much, could fight too damn well, and had shown a bit too much interest in keeping the streets of Chicago free of all but the most minor of fae. Just like Mab, Marcone didn’t like other people messing with what was his. Unfortunately, what was his had been free game to the fae at one point, and Mab wanted it to stay that way.

“Sitting on my desk brooding isn’t going to enlighten me, Knight,” Marcone said, leaning against the wall opposite me. Hendricks was at the door looking broody, and if I didn’t know better I’d have said he was pouting.

“I’m not so sure you want to be enlightened,” I told him. I was pushing the limits a bit; Mab had told me to kill him, but despite my planning I hadn’t been able to just show up and stab him in the back. I couldn’t just unleash Winter on him. I respected him too much for that.

“You are here officially as the Queen’s Winter Knight, are you not?”

I nodded. “Here with a job. My job. She didn’t tell me not to tell you.”

He raised an eyebrow, catching on quick. “Winter Knight, what task has thy queen given thee?”

“I’ve been sent to kill you.”

You could hear the wind howling outside, and dogs barking in the distance. Winter was fading, spring was coming; it was the only reason I think there was for why Mab didn’t strike me down where I stood. I fiercely told myself that she hadn’t _forbidden_ me to be straightforward, and the fact that Hendricks and Marcone hadn’t started shooting meant they trusted me to tell them before the fight began. There was honor in that, and Knights had honor. Mab couldn’t take that from me.

“Are you going to comply with the queen’s wishes?”

My hands were clenched on the desk. I’d thought that the Winter Mantle would harden my heart, make me colder and harsher.

Instead it made the pain fiercer.

“I have to,” I choked out – and I had to choke it out, it wasn’t coming any other way. Mab’s punishments were nothing to sneeze at.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” John said reasonably.

I laughed at that. “You didn’t see the last guy,” I said. “I think even he lost count of the number of times he died – and the number of times he begged for a death he wouldn’t return from? Must have been triple that.”

Hendricks was frowning, his pout having transformed sometime during our conversation, and he had a nifty little phone in his hand he was messing with. “Gard says the room’s ready,” he suddenly announced. “If he wants it.”

Marcone nodded. “It’s only a temporary measure,” John said, green eyes flashing towards me briefly before he looked away. He’d never failed to look me in the eye before, so I knew this wasn’t something he was exactly proud of. “I don’t know that it will stop anything she can do to you simply by calling you, or through her mental link, but it will keep you and her physically separate while I conduct negotiations with her and, if necessary, with the Lord of the Hunt.”

The Erlking was about the only being Mab might listen to when it came to her Knight, and I carefully didn’t think the word ‘hostage,’ or consider what Marcone might be trying to negotiate for besides his life. Such thoughts were dangerous, even though it was obvious that’s where it was heading.

“I was sent to kill you,” I told Marcone, gritting my teeth and gripping the desk harder. “ _Whatever_ measures you take to prevent that outcome I can have no prior knowledge of. Because I’m not the one taking them.”

It was a relief when Hendricks finally hit me over the head hard enough to knock me out. Maybe Snow White would have had better luck if she’d had a bodyguard like him, instead of a hunter who thought a lamb’s heart might even remotely pass for human.


End file.
